Education & Training National Success Rates Tables for the Academic Year 2010/11

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why have the Tables been renamed 'Education and Training National Success Rates Tables'?

The Tables are a cascade publication of the January 2012 Statistical First Release. This uses the terminology 'Education and Training' to refer to the funding stream previously known as 'Learner Responsive'. The provision and aims included within this definition are the same as 'Learner Responsive' 2010/11.

2. How can I find out the success rates of a provider for all 'Long' qualifications?

The 'Headline' worksheet of the 'Institutions' table has been enhanced to restore the 'Length' dimension, which allows the user to analyse a provider's success rate by 'Long', 'Short' and 'Very Short' qualification lengths.

This change was made in September 2012 in response to requests from providers who had been unable to carry out this analysis using the 'Duration' dimension in the worksheet, which provides an analysis of length at a finer level of detail.

3. Why have the Education and Training National Success Rates Tables been re-published?

The Education and Training National Success Rates Tables were revised on 9th August 2012 to correct an error in unknown levels and types mainly in the 'Other' qualification category. Further detail of this revision is available in the revision paper available at the National Success Rates Tables pages of the Data Service website. Success Rates information available elsewhere is not affected. This includes the Statistical First Release, FE Choices and the individual Qualification Success Rate and Minimum Levels of Performance reports that providers receive on their own data.

4. The spreadsheets won’t load into my version of Excel

Some versions of Excel (earlier than Excel 2007) have a constraint on the size of worksheet that they can handle (approx 65k rows of data). Wherever this limit is likely to be breached we have split area analyses across two worksheets (e.g. the Learner Home Postcode analysis is contained in two alphabetical sheets, A-L & M-Z).

This is a software design constraint in Excel. Wherever possible users should consider upgrading their installation of Excel to 2007 or better.

5. **Some of the provision that is unique to my institution doesn’t appear on your tables. Why has this been omitted?**

The success rates tables are built from identifiable cohorts of learners undertaking learning aims expected to end in a particular year. Where a cohort is made up of fewer than 30 learners at less than 2 institutions, these small cohorts will be suppressed from display in order to prevent individual’s achievements being identified. However, these cohorts are still included in higher level aggregates of the data.

6. **How can I find out which qualifications have been excluded from the reports because they are only offered by 1 provider or have fewer than 30 learners nationally?**

The ‘Excluded Aims’ report shows summary details of every aim that has been excluded from the main reports. The report also indicates the reason(s) for exclusion.

7. **The success rates for the sub-cohorts don’t add up to 100% of the rate for the total cohort. Why is this?**

There are two possible reasons for this: (i) success rate figures are rounded to the nearest integer at all levels (ii) extremely small cohorts of achievers (fewer than 30 learners) are suppressed from the published tables in order to prevent the risk of possible identification of individuals’ successes. However, these extremely small cohorts’ figures are still included in the higher level cohort totals.

8. **How is the success rate calculated?**

In simple terms the success rate is the number of aims achieved divided by the number started expressed as a percentage.

9. **How is the achievement rate calculated?**

In simple terms the achievement rate is the number of aims achieved divided by the number actually completed expressed as a percentage. 10. **How is the retention rate calculated?**

In simple terms the retention rate is the number of aims actually completed divided by the number started expressed as a percentage.

11. **My institution’s provision is radically different from the national mix. How do I use the published success rates to apply their standards to our situation?**

The national success rates tables provide a wide variety of analyses against which a single institution can be contextualised and interpreted. Amongst these are tables that analyse by qualification type and level. The rates for these types and levels can be adapted to the needs of your institution by amending them to reflect the proportion of provision you actually deliver. A worked example demonstrating how to do this is included in the document Education and Training (formerly Learner Responsive) National Success Rates Tables 2010/11 – Guidance notes published on the Data Service website.

12. **What qualifications are not included?**

Key Skills, Functional Skills and OLASS provision are excluded from the tables.

Other exclusions are documented in the Learner Responsive methodology.

13. **What is a ‘start’?**

A ‘start’ is a learning aim that is planned to end in the year and the learner: -

- has not transferred within the provider
- is funded by the Skills Funding Agency or the former Young People’s Learning Agency
- is not under 16 at start of learning
- did not withdraw in the first six weeks

14. **I can’t find a national success rate or percentile analysis for a particular type of provision either delivered by my provider or within my local authority. How can I find a national success rate for, for instance, Entry To Employment provision?**

The Education and Training National Success Rates Tables are derived from the same data sources used in the Learner Responsive Qualification Success Rates (QSR) reports for 2010/11 and for previous years. These data sources are in turn derived from the F05 or L05 ILRs for each year according to the published rules for recognising and defining success (‘the methodology’). These rules exclude various categories of provision and aims. Among these is Offenders Learning & Support Services (OLASS) provision, Skills for Life, Entry to Employment, etc. Consequently, because providers are not measured by qualification success rates for these aims and types, national success rates tables do not provide contextual national rates for them.

The full list of exclusions of provision and aim types can be found in the published 2010/11 Learner Success Rates methodology. This can be found on the Data Service website at: http://www.thedataservice.org.uk/statistics/success_rates/2010_11/lr/lr.

15. Why is there no 'High Grades' measure in the 2010/11 tables?

The old 'High Grades' measure was removed from the Tables in 2009/10 as the definition of a 'high grade' was no longer widely agreed. The definition of 'High Grades' was then reviewed by the funding agencies in 2010 and a new definition approved by The Data Harmonisation Group in February 2011. The measure was not included in the 2010/11 provider QSR reports however, and consequently is not included in the 2010/11 Education & Training National Success Rates Tables.

However this information may be used in reports produced by other agencies that consume or receive master data files from the Data Service.

16. Why are there Achievement Rate (All Completers) values of over 100% in some cases?

In a very small number of cases Achievement Rates (All Completers) greater than 100% are recorded. These include valid cases within the agreed methodology where transfers that achieve their aims have been correctly recorded as achievements.

17. My institution delivers the International Baccalaureate. Where can I find National Success Rates figures for this qualification?

International Baccalaureate qualifications data can be found in the 'A, A2, AS, GCSE and IB' worksheet of the “A, A2, AS, NVQ, BTEC, IB & GCSEs” tables. 18. My institution delivers 14-19 Diplomas. Where can I find National Success Rates figures for this qualification?

14-19 Diplomas qualifications data are included in the “Other Qualifications” tables.

19. The Overall used to have percentile worksheets for Local Authorities by Learner Home Postcode (L17) and Delivery Location Postcode (A23). They have been removed from the published 2010/11 report. What has happened to them?

We are currently reviewing our approach to the presentation of percentile measures made up of very small cohorts of learners and providers. The Local Authorities by Postcode worksheets have many occurrences of these small cohorts. We have therefore removed them from the current publication of the 2010/11 Education and Training National Success Rates Tables.